Don’t get fooled again

If Jody Wilson-Raybould is to be believed, and she certainly seems credible, the minister was under extreme duress to change her mind about prosecuting SNC-Lavalin. I’m not going to detail her testimony in this blog, everyone is now all too familiar with the ongoing efforts made by her colleagues on behalf of the Quebec-based firm. None of that activity seems to fall under the “rule of law” rubric so beloved by Justin Trudeau.

While multiple participants have supplied facts (as they see them), the Globe and Mail is to be congratulated on first raising this matter last month. Turns out the original piece written by Robert Fife and others – based on anonymous sources – was accurate. However, the Globe has now gone over the top in crowing about subsequent events. In his page one opinion piece this morning, Konrad Yakabuski did a fine job until the last two paragraphs that, to my mind, contain defamatory wording that I will not repeat. But, as Casey Stengel used to say, “You could look it up.”

Of all the issues to explode in Trudeau’s face, this is certainly the most ironic possible topic. As a newly elected prime minister, his virtues and values were very much tied to indigenous people, gender equity, and the “sunny ways” slogan that voters took to mean real change at the top. Turns out politics is focused on the same old goal as ever: getting re-elected no matter the cost.

I voted Liberal in 2015 for the first time since 1968. This October my vote is going elsewhere. Disappointment is too weak a word to describe how I feel. You’d think after all these years I’d be less naive.

1 Response

My concern – almost greater than the SNC-Lavalin affair itself – is a highly disturbing impression I am left with:

Did the gathering push against Jody – chiefly by white privileged males – have, possibly, any connection with two glaring factors: (1) that their ‘target’ was a woman and (2) that she is also a First Nations woman. In other words, does colonialist-era blood still run thick through Ottawa’s back rooms, front rooms and elsewhere? Had the incumbent instead been a white, privileged male I suspect the issue would have had a different outcome.

From the get-go I have always sincerely wondered why Justin Trudeau wanted to enter politics.